Luke
11:37-41
When
Jesus finished that talk, a Pharisee asked him to dinner. He entered his house
and sat right down at the table. The Pharisee was shocked and somewhat offended
when he saw that Jesus didn’t wash up before the meal. But the Jesus said to
him, “I know you Pharisees burnish the surface of your cups and plates so they
sparkle in the sun, but I also know your insides are maggoty with greed and
secret evil. Stupid Pharisees! Didn’t the One who made the outside also make
the inside? Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give
generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and
your hands.
Food for
thought!
Jesus says
in this gospel something that is extremely important. He says to the Pharisee,
"I also know your insides... Didn’t the One who made the outside also make
the inside?" Jesus is making a great revelation not only about ourselves
but also about himself. About us, that we live in two worlds: the inner and
outer worlds.
We may
develop a preference for one world or the other. Some people turn almost
exclusively to the inner world, while others direct their thoughts and
interests toward the world of externals. But in order to be happy and
well-integrated people, it is important to function in both worlds with ease
and satisfaction; our happiness lies in the development of our two worlds, the
inner one and the outer one.
To live
successfully in the outer world we need to live successfully in the inner
world. Truth teaches us to relate the inner to the outer, to integrate the
spiritual with the physical, to unify our thoughts, feelings, and actions into
a harmonious oneness. There is an old adage that goes, “As within, so without.”
It means that what appears in our outer world—friends, jobs, opportunities,
schools, career—reflects what is happening inside ourselves. Almost every
successful person will tell you that he first thought out his moves in the
inner consciousness. The door to success opens from within.
The good
news is, as Jesus said, "the One who made the outside also made the
inside."
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